In this installment I'll explain what I consider the essence of Competitive Programming:

C++ in Competitive Programming: compromises

by Marco Arena

From the article:

Crafting software is about balancing competing trade-offs. It’s impossible to optimize every factor of a system, as speed, usability, accuracy, etc at the same time. Moreover, solutions of today impact decisions and solutions of tomorrow. On the other hand, in Competitive Programming, the best solution is one that just makes each test-case pass...